Time was when the Midwestern grain belt had the manicured look of a suburban lawn. In summer, rows of corn lined up neat as picket fences. In winter the plowed earth mimicked swatches of felt brushed clear of debris. But as this year's planting season gets under way, an increasing number of growers are "farming ugly" -- gunning their tractors over fields ajumble with great clods of dirt and raggedy stalks left over from last year's harvest.
That untidiness is symbolic of a major shift in farming methods that is working its way across the nation's breadbasket. Reason: an emerging consensus that agriculture as it has long been practiced in the U.S. is a threat to the land and its future productivity.
The clean swaths that farmers have plowed across the prairie are well suited to the efficient use of farm machinery. But they encourage erosion that has allowed vast amounts of topsoil to be blown away by wind or washed into the rivers and lakes. Chemical fertilizers, insecticides and weed killers have contributed to harvests that make U.S. agriculture the most productive in the ! world. But they have also leached into groundwater, contaminating wells in rural communities across the nation. "Not every well is polluted, and not every farmer has an erosion problem," says Ernest Shea, executive vice president of the National Association of Conservation Districts. "But we realize that we'll be better off if we admit that we're part of the problem."
Nowhere are farmers more primed for change than in Iowa, proud producer of 20% of the nation's corn. In 1988 and 1989, the state's natural resources department and the University of Iowa sampled groundwater quality in 686 rural wells. Nearly 15% of them were contaminated with one or more pesticides. For Iowa State University weed biologist Jack Dekker, the survey marked a turning point. "What we had," he says, "was a one-way arrow pointing to a problem."
Dekker is one of a growing corps of experts urging farmers to adopt a new approach called sustainable agriculture. Once the term was synonymous with the dreaded O word -- a farm-belt euphemism for trendy organic farming that uses no synthetic chemicals. But sustainable agriculture has blossomed into an effort to curb erosion by modifying plowing techniques and to protect water supplies by minimizing, if not eliminating, artificial fertilizers and pest controls. "Sustainable agriculture used to be something you said under your breath," jokes Indiana farmer Jim Moseley, agricultural consultant to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Now the definition has broadened so that it's politically acceptable to a greater range of people, and that has opened up an opportunity for dialogue."
Not surprisingly, the most persuasive proselytizers for sustainable agriculture are those who have profited by it. Since 1981, Wilbert Blumhardt and his son Glenn have been fighting erosion on their 3,000-acre spread near Bowdle, S. Dak., by planting wheat, sunflowers, soybeans and corn in fields littered by the debris from earlier harvests. "That trash," says Wilbert, "serves an important purpose. It helps feed the soil, and it allows the water to soak in and not wash off into lakes and streams." Last year the Blumhardts' fields produced an average of 27 bu. of wheat an acre, 30% more than conventional farms in the area.